By Tom
Today was the day when “The Cart” came rolling in. That’s when testing becomes real in my school. The cart full of Chromebooks gets wheeled into your room; the day before your student start with the SBAC training test, and a week before they take the real thing. And as far as I know, every one of my fourth graders will be taking the test. No one’s opting out.
And I’m glad. Continue reading
Our school has been doing SBA testing for over a week now. Here are just some of the things I’ve learned about how elementary students are affected by the SBA.
ONE: SBA affects how much work I can assign in my classroom.
As soon as my students returned from spring break, I asked them to pull out their assignment calendar. I asked them to record the due dates for the rest of the school year. There were the standard reading assignments for the trimester. But there were no major projects. No CBA, no science fair, no research project, no big writing project.
The kids didn’t complain, but they were curious. Why?
Because testing is the big project from now to the end of the year.
These tests exhaust the kids. I can’t load on some other major project and expect them to do well—either on the testing or on the project.
It wasn’t always this way. Not many years ago I did big projects right until the last week of school. (I drove the district tech director crazy insisting he keep the online grading system open right up until the last day of school!)
Not any more.
TWO: SBA affects my team.
Four of us teach math at the same time, but we don’t test on the same days. We have to cancel math on all the days that one of us have an SBA scheduled. We are losing about three weeks of math.
THREE: SBA affects the whole school.
For the entire testing period, all the computer labs in the school are reserved for testing use only. No classroom use of labs. For weeks.
FOUR: Elementary students are not proficient typists.
One third grade girl worked diligently all day on her first test. She finally stopped—paused—at the end of the first day. She had finished questions 1-8. There were 43 questions on the test.
FIVE: Elementary students have limited attention spans.
One fourth grade boy, after an hour and a half of hard work, simply gave up. He tipped back in his chair, looked straight up at the ceiling, and started randomly pressing keys. From what his teacher said, it’s not a matter of him not caring about school or grades or doing well. He just wanted the endless nightmare experience to be over.
SIX: Elementary students are impulsive.
You can give them directions at the beginning of the test. You can say, “This is a two-day test so DON’T hit end when you stop your work at the end of the day today. Hit pause.” You can emphasize and explain the directions. But at the end of the day, there will still be kids who hit end. They aren’t going to stop to think. They aren’t going to stop to ask. In their little kid minds, that’s what makes sense.
Of course, as far as the SBA goes, they are now locked out of any review of what they did the first day. They can’t even go back and look at the article they were reading in order to get information they need to help answer questions or to do the required writing on day two.
They cannot get unlocked.
And there is nothing anyone can do. Their teacher can’t unlock it. The administrator can’t unlock it.
One quick, thoughtless motion by a child hobbles their second day of testing. Because, oh yes, they still have to take the second day of the test.
SEVEN: Has anyone noticed that elementary students don’t process the written word as well on the computer screen as they do on paper?
And haven’t you found that to be true in your own life? I have. I can proofread a paper on the computer multiple times and think I’ve found every mistake. Then I hit print. The moment the paper comes out of the machine, I see errors I missed on the monitor.
This weekend my husband and I hosted a young couple in our home from China. Yuhao has an MA in computer engineering, and Victor is at UW doing research for a PhD in business administration.
We asked them what testing was like in China. Victor said they were tested on paper. Less important tests were given on cheap paper. Important tests were administered on very fine paper. He said he always did better work on the better paper.
I know I used to buy very high quality writing paper for my class for final draft written work (back before we did almost all final drafts on computers). My students put much more effort into making their work the best quality they could produce when the paper itself was beautiful.
SOLUTIONS:
Make the elementary SBA tests shorter. No day’s test should run more than one hour for an elementary student.
Go back to paper and pencil tests for elementary students.
The morning of the state science fair, I asked all the students gathered in my room what they had learned from their projects. They told me lots of specific details about their individual projects, from the behavior of worms to how difficult it is to make cheese. I asked what they learned about the scientific process. They talked about problems they had controlling variables and how they learned to write better conclusions.
Then I asked how many thought science was fun? Hands shot up all over the room. I threw my fist in the air and announced, “I won!”
After we got back from the fair, we debriefed. I passed out the class’s ribbons and awards. We had lots of second place ribbons, some third place, six first place trophies for “Best in Category,” and two Special Awards. As a team, for our first time at the fair, we felt we’d done a pretty good job.
I reminded my students, “Look how well you did. Not bad when you consider my number one priority for your science fair project was that you have fun.”
One boy quickly added, “But you also set really high standards.”
I said, “Ok, that was my number two priority. But my number one priority was that you have fun.”
A week or two earlier a parent had come in and commented on how her child hadn’t chosen a very important topic. I said I didn’t really care. As long as the student found it interesting and was doing a good job of following the scientific process, it was fine with me.
As I told that mother, elementary school is about getting them engaged. It’s about building positive attitudes. It’s not just about making them learn—it’s about making them want to learn.
If I can make them enjoy science—and math and reading and social studies and writing and everything else I teach them—they will go on to middle school and high school and want learn those subjects more deeply.
If I don’t build the positive attitudes now, then when they continue in those subjects in middle and high school, their secondary teachers will be fighting such an uphill battle.
The truth is, I have a really good researcher backing up my claim that building positive attitudes in elementary school can—believe it or not—be even MORE important than being the most highly skilled teacher in the field.
Benjamin S. Bloom, the educational guru who developed Bloom’s Taxonomy, led a team of researchers who worked with immensely talented young people in six fields of endeavor. They published their findings in a hefty book called Developing Talent in Young People.
Here, briefly paraphrased, is how the researchers described the initial teachers of these extraordinarily successful individuals.
At this stage the best teachers are described as being good with children and someone the children are comfortable with. They are supportive, warm, loving, caring, nurturing. They give positive support and rewards like stars and stickers and smiling faces on papers. They are a “second mother.”
They are not necessarily leaders in the field. They don’t necessarily have the highest skills themselves. Their gift is they make the field of study enjoyable for the children. They can make beginning lessons seem like fun.
If you want to read the full summary/review of the book, go to my Teacher Resources page and look under the Education section.
Somehow, in the race toward rigor, the idea that we need to make learning enjoyable seems to be slipping off center stage. I object. At the elementary level, I believe the two goals are equally important.
So I know it’s testing season, but go ahead—this spring concentrate on making learning fun!
There’s a lot of chatter in the lunchroom lately about test scores and pay, and how teachers will want to change positions if their pay is tied to test scores. “No one will want to teach third, fourth, or fifth.” “I’ll want to switch to second grade.”
Then I hear, “At least you won’t have to worry, Jan. You teach gifted kids. All your kids pass all the tests every year.”
It’s true, most of my highly capable students have the ability to pass most of the tests that are thrown at them. Having the ability to do well doesn’t necessarily mean that they will perform at that level.
Last week I asked my students, “How many of you want to go into computer programming when you grow up?” Hands shot up around the room. I said, “You need to be good at writing.” One boy jerked his hand back down as fast as he had originally thrust it up.
Honestly, what conceivable motivation can I offer that boy? He’s dreamed of working in the computer industry; I’m sure he’s pictured himself spending his adult life designing video games and having a job that’s more play than work. But he is willing to give up his dream—in a heartbeat—in order to avoid the dread task of writing.
Over the years I’ve had several students who are stubbornly resistant to writing. They may start out strong on a writing piece with a great initial idea but then peter out fast and dribble down to nothing.
Here are the kinds of help I can give my reluctant writers in class:
I can give them the structure and encouragement they need throughout the writing process. “You need to develop those ideas.” “Don’t stop there, I want to hear more.” “Wow, that’s great. What happens next?”
But, oh, how they balk at doing more than a single draft. Writing anything once is painful enough. Making changes and writing it again? Pure torture! “You need to read it aloud now. Does it make sense?” “Can you use stronger verbs, more precise words, or some great figurative language?”
Finally, finally, they are supposed to edit for conventions. They are long past tired of the piece by now. They just want to be done, so every single time we get to the editing stage in class projects, I give a pep talk to the class about how important editing is. “I know it’s hard. Conventions weren’t invented to make it easier for the writer—they were all invented to make life easier for the reader.”
All the help works in the classroom where I can ride herd on all my little mavericks. Even my reluctant writers can produce excellent, quality work when they get the support they need.
Here are the kinds of help I can give those writers during testing:
On the day of the ELA performance task, all my students will go in knowing what they need to do and how to do it. They will walk in knowing they need to be meticulous and thorough. It’s nothing new. We’ve practiced those skills all year.
I can guarantee my reluctant writers will be the first ones done with the test. I can picture the student a couple of years ago who popped up an hour or more before anybody else. “I’m finished!”
I asked him (through gritted teeth), “Are you sure you’re done?”
Big grin. “Yes!”
“Did you answer every question?”
“Yes.”
Short of cheating, I can’t do anything more. I can’t say, “It’s not a race. You need to go back and read your piece and see if you can develop your ideas more thoroughly. Are your ideas organized well? Can you express your ideas better? Now go back, sit down, and do a proper job.”
For most of my students, that speech would be enough to get a significant improvement out of them. And if I could give them a couple of pep talks along the way—without looking at their writing at all—they would produce the kind of writing they are fully capable of creating.
I’m not allowed to do that.
Yet some people want my pay to be based on how well my students test.
My point? A test is a measure not just of academics but of motivation. If it turns out my pay is going to be based on how well my students do on the SBA, then I want to be able to properly motivate my students during the test.
By Tom
One of my fourth graders began school in a part of the country known for its spectacular natural beauty. Unfortunately, it’s also know for subpar housing, poor health care, and high illiteracy. Sadly, this student started the year well behind his peers and is still struggling to catch up. When I talked to his mom, she explained that he was an average student in his old school and she noticed a huge jump in terms of what he was expected to do in our school.
In other words, standards.
People across the country, both conservative and progressive, are balking at the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, either because they fear too much federal government involvement in what has traditionally been a state issue, or because they fear the Common Core is leading to over-testing of students and profiteering by the companies that produce those tests. While these concerns probably have some merit, there are three important facts concerning the common core that need to be considered:
First of all, we’ve always had, and always will have, standards. And it’s not just us. Doctors have standards. Plumbers have standards. So do engineers, pharmacists and the guys that build train tracks. We had standards before the Common Core and we’ll have other standards if we abandon the Common Core.
Second, standards imply assessment. Think of those guys and their train tracks. From time to time, one of them has to stop what he’s doing and check to see that their tracks are just the right distance apart. Otherwise they’ll have to start over. Likewise, from time to time we have to stop what we’re doing every once in a while to see if our students are learning the stuff we’re trying to teach. It’s inconvenient for everyone, but it’s also important.
And finally, it makes no sense for different places in the country to be teaching to different standards. Particularly math, ELA and science standards. People move around a lot, and kids all over the country will eventually compete for the same jobs and college seats. It’s ridiculous for their respective states to focus on different standards. Because by “different” we’re talking harder or easier; and in this case, harder is better.
The Common Core is not perfect and testing is no fun. I get that. But there’s a kid struggling in my classroom right now, mostly because the beautiful state where he was born and the beautiful state where he lives now each decided on a different set of standards.
That doesn’t make any sense.
By Tom
The other night I was sitting in my living room, on my recliner, preparing lesson plans for the next day. (That’s how I roll, by the way; one day at a time.) As I was working on my math lesson, I looked in my Math Expressions Teachers’ Guide and noticed that the next day was all about finding the area of a triangle. A bell went off in my mind; I remembered something from some Common Core workshop sometime in the last couple of years. So I check the CCSS website and sure enough, area of a triangle is no longer a fourth grade thing. Sixth graders get to do it.
Now, a smarter man would have simply shrugged it off, turned the page to the next lesson and planned accordingly. But I’m not smart. I thought to myself, “I wonder if there’s something in the fourth grade standards that isn’t covered by our textbook. And if there is, maybe I should teach a lesson on that.”
There was. Fourth graders are supposed to “Recognize angle measure as additive; when an angle is decomposed into non-overlapping parts, the angle measure of the whole is the sum of the angle measures of the parts. They’re supposed to know how to solve addition and subtraction problems to find unknown angles on a diagram in real world and mathematical problems.”
In other words, my students are supposed to know that you can take a ninety degree angle and divide it into a sixty and a thirty degree angle. Or you can take a ninety degree angle and combine it with two 45-degree angles to make a 180-degree angle. Stuff like that.
So I went online to see if there were any resources available. There are. Actually there’s some great stuff from New York State’s “Engage NY” site. So I found myself some resources, came up with a plan for my students, and wrote it up.
Then I checked the time. Continue reading
By Tom
Despite being three months pregnant, my wife agreed to hike with me to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back. The last three miles were brutal, what with the pregnancy and all, and the only way I could keep her going was the promise of ice cream from the little stand near the trail head. When we finally finished the hike, she headed to our cabin; telling me not to bother following her without a scoop of strawberry.
So I waited in line. When it was finally my turn, the ice cream guy rolled down the security screen and told me they were closed. “It’s five o’clock,” he explained. Nothing I could say would change his mind, so I headed back for what became a tense evening.
That was almost 20 years ago, but the ice cream guy is starting to look a lot like our governor. I’m talking about the part in his budget where he proposes class size reductions (down to 17 students!) for kindergarten through third grade.
I teach fourth grade.
Apparently he thinks it’s fine to cram 29 students in a fourth grade classroom, as long as there’s only about half that number in the younger grades. And he’s not the only one. Most class size reduction programs around the country focus on K-3.
Why? Research, of course. Specifically, a twenty-five year old study out of Tennessee that found positive gains in student achievement when class size went down. What most people forget to notice, though, is that the study only looked at K-3 students. They didn’t involve anyone older. At least not in that study. Another study (which you don’t often hear about) was conducted in 2000 by the National Center for Education Statistics and looked at K-12 data from 20 different states. These guys found that lower class size had a positive effect of students across grade levels. To wit:
“The clearest result with respect to correlates of achievement is that average achievement scores are higher in schools with smaller class sizes. This result, obtained from structural equation modeling using both state assessment data and NAEP adjustments for between-state variance in achievement, is consistent across grade levels.”
Then there’s me. I’ve taught second, third and fourth grade for over thirty years, and I’m here to tell you that nothing structural happens to a kid on her ninth birthday which helps her better navigate a crowded classroom. What I can tell you is that when my class size creeps upwards of thirty, several things happen.
First of all, classroom management becomes an overwhelming priority. I have to come down hard on the smallest of infractions to keep things under control. I can do it – trust me – but sometimes it’s not pretty.
Secondly, with more kids I relate mostly to the class as a whole, not to the students as individuals. When I plan lessons, I think of the whole class or small subgroups and differentiate (or not) accordingly. With a class size closer to twenty, it’s much easier – and more natural – to think of individual students.
And finally, I simply don’t have the time to spend giving personal feedback to each student. My students just completed a major writing project before winter break. There was literally no way I could sit down with 29 students and spend even three minutes explaining to each child how I scored their writing. The best I could do was fill out a thorough rubric, attach it to the writing, and pass it back.
I’m glad to see that Kindergarteners through third graders might get lower class sizes. But I’m not convinced that it should stop there.
We should all get ice cream.
By Tom
It took a while for the results to trickle in, but after nearly a week it’s become clear that the voters have decided to lower class sizes in Washington. I voted yes, with all the passion as a 1988 vote for Michael Dukakis.
Why the lack of enthusiasm? Three things: implementation, allocation and expectations.
Implementation: Now that the initiative passed, none of us can expect our classes to suddenly shrink. I certainly don’t. Class sizes aren’t going to get any smaller unless and until there’s someplace to put those extra kids. And in my school, there simply isn’t. Every one of our classrooms is being used, along with the two portables that were brought in over the summer. And it’s the same all over our district. If I understand the Initiative correctly, there are workarounds for schools that don’t have room to create new classrooms; it involves hiring extra teachers until the average class size goes down. It sounds to me like my district will be hiring a fleet of learning support teachers, which is a good thing; as long as we’re careful about how it plays out. This is definitely something all of us need to pay attention to and get involved in. It could be a great thing for our schools or it could be a mess.
Allocation: 1351 is going to be really expensive, which is a problem, since lawmakers don’t run the state like a restaurant. “I hope you enjoyed your lower class sizes, citizens; here’s the bill. I’ll be your cashier when you’re ready.” What they do instead is move money around so that as few voters as possible notice. My guess is that the people who will end up noticing the most will be teachers. I worry about my salary, my benefits and my National Board bonus. I also worry about the state’s ability to pay for other important education programs, specifically those that involve college readiness.
Expectations: Once we get these smaller classes – or whatever workaround we end up with – all eyes are going to focus on outcomes. And I don’t think they’ll be waiting for the class of 2028. In fact, as a fourth grade teacher I’m looking forward to 2016, when I get a class of kids who all came out of 17-student third grade classrooms, all of whom had the benefit of more teacher attention. And my expectations will increase each year. But that’s nothing compared to what “outsiders” will be looking for. And by “outsiders” I probably mean the Seattle Times, who were relentless in their opposition to 1351, both in and out of their editorial page. I don’t seriously doubt that we’ll have the data to show that the Initiative led to student improvement, but I have no doubt that the doubters will be looking really hard to prove that it didn’t. And that worries me.
So I guess it’s time to celebrate. But briefly, because there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure this turns out well.
By Tom White
On Monday, Spencer put up a post about Initiative 1351 in which he described the dramatic decrease in the number of relationships within a classroom when class size drops from current levels to those proposed by the Initiative. While this is certainly a novel approach to thinking about class size and the effect it has on the complexities within a classroom, I have two concerns.
First of all, Spencer seems to treat all relationships within a classroom equally. As if Aaliyah’s relationship with Travis, for example, is as important as her relationship with her teacher. I don’t think that’s true. I can certainly accept that she and Travis should have some relationship, and I agree that having more kids in the room might crowd out that relationship, but the primary relationship for both Aaliyah and Travis is that which they have with their teacher. Therefore, while it’s true that the number of relationships is a quadratic function of the number of people, the number of primary relationships – those between a student and her teacher – increases much more slowly as class size creeps up. While I agree that more students means less attention for each student and I agree that less students per class is preferable, I don’t accept Spencer’s dramatic math.
Furthermore, simply lowering class size doesn’t necessarily mean that instruction changes. I teach 28 fourth graders this year. If Initiative 1351 passes, I’ll eventually have only 25 students in my classroom. I honestly can’t promise that my lessons will be noticeably different with three fewer students. They won’t need to be. I’ll still construct and implement my lesson plans in much the same way, using much the same activities. True, I’ll have slightly more contact with each kid during each lesson, but the activities won’t be much different. I’m well aware that in the lower grades and in high poverty schools, class size will drop enough to actually change the learning activities, but in most classrooms – including mine – we’ll be spending an awful lot of money for pretty much the same lessons.
That said, I’ll be voting yes, mostly as a matter of principle, and I hope it passes, but I worry about the cost.
I teach 5th grade, the last year of elementary school in my district. Do you remember what it was like when you were in fifth grade? I actually have a hard time remembering that year, so I’ll just think back to 6th grade. And maybe that’s better anyway because in my school, 6th grade was the last year in elementary. Ok. There’s my teacher: short sleeve button-down shirt and a striped tie. I remember sitting in his room all day long – time to do this, time to do that, recess, lunch, you get the picture. This doesn’t look anything like what 5th grade looks like in my school, and I’m pretty happy about that.
My school has three tracks, which means that there are three teachers at every grade. Not long ago there were only two, but we’ve grown. Before I came to this school the two 5th grade teachers (one of whom I now teach with) decided that they didn’t want their students to miss out on what the other had to offer, so they swapped students for one period a day. Many elementary teachers have done and continue to do this. I did this with my previous teaching partner at a different school with a single subject. “I’ll do all of the math; you do all of the science,” or whatever. What they started here went a step further, and then a step further. When the other teacher retired six years ago I slid into the program as the math and science teacher. When we grew to three tracks and hired a third teacher, the division of labor became even more well defined.
Our program is a little like middle school, but as we like to say – with a safety net. It’s still elementary school, but we do everything we can to prepare our students for what is to come. Students move between each of the three 5th grade teachers in the morning periods, and spend the afternoon period with one of us on rotating basis. They also see specialists once a week in the afternoons for P.E., library, and choir. There are many fine things about this arrangement. Students win because they are exposed to the gifts from each teacher and they get a chance to learn in different settings with different teaching styles. The teachers win too because they love their subjects, and they no longer have to prepare for six different classes, rather just two. But there are some sacrifices too. My student load is 78 students rather than just 26. That means more grading, tracking, remediating, challenging, and helping along, but nothing a typical middle school teacher would mind – many of them have a load of 125 or more. The relationships with students are typically not as deep as they would be in a self-contained class, but then again there are more relationships. Up until this year this type of arrangement always seemed really good to me, but now it seems to be almost necessary. Here’s why.
School has changed – even in the short timeframe (nine years) I have been teaching. We now have Common Core and Race to the Top – both of which have brought significant changes to every classroom in America. But beyond (and within) some of the shifting lingo, there is a great deal more being asked of our young students today than there once was. I think we all agree about that. As these expectations rise, the skills required to teach these disciplines does as well. Is a generalist expected to be an expert in all of these subjects (reading, math, science, social studies, writing, and health)? Don’t get me wrong, there are amazing generalists out there, but the job has gotten more and more difficult to the point where there probably just aren’t enough. I think it’s time to (re) consider having more specialists in the elementary schools. How about a math department that can coordinate and deliver a closely planned sequence of instruction for all of the students in an entire school? They would be able to deeply collaborate about math (or their shared math students) and not have to worry about “the other subjects.” In an era of ever-increasing teacher and student expectations, taking on everything in an elementary curriculum is a tremendous load.
Consider too that this model of teaching has impacted my professional development. Because I was so deeply engaged in mathematics, I was able to take on a master’s degree in math education in the evenings and summers without it being completely overwhelming. Not that it was easy, but all of the mental energy was inline with the rest of my work, so it fit. In addition to the master’s degree, I also added a high school math endorsement to my teaching certificate. This deeper grasp of math helps me better prepare my students for higher mathematics. A few years after I finished the master’s I pursued National Board Certification – equally rigorous, and deeply beneficial to my practice. This too was in line with my teaching practice as I certified in Early Adolescent Mathematics. Now, six years into this specialized program, I have developed a much deeper expertise in teaching math to young students.
The job of teaching is difficult on its own, but if that wasn’t enough there are often big changes that take place from year to year. This year my district adopted a new math curriculum for K-5. It takes a great deal of work outside of my contracted hours to learn a new program and prepare to teach it. In my case, I get to teach each lesson three times a day. My single prep is also made that much easier due to the depth of my content and pedagogical knowledge. Then there is the speed at which I become proficient with the material. Before winter break most elementary teachers will have taught about 70 math lessons, while I will have taught 210. Student learning outcomes surely improve with all of that experience. At the same time, changes coming down the pike in English Language Arts fall upon the shoulders of my more-than-capable colleagues.
Hung-Hsi Wu wrote an in-depth article making the case for elementary math specialists a few years ago, but I would suggest that similar arguments could be made for every discipline. What do you think?